Legends from Beyond the Infinity Haze
by Born-Of-Elven-Blood
Summary: Loki enacts a plan that will leave him the undisputed ruler of the nine realms. While Thor and his friends set out to stop him, the only one who can truly complicate his success is Jane Foster, the mortal he cannot seem to banish from his thoughts. And beneath it all, a mysterious song echoes from the dawn of time, insidiously shaping the fates of the few who can hear it.
1. Prologue: A Song of Ice and Shadows

**Disclaimer: **The plot and characters of the MCU are not even slightly mine. This story is in no way for sale or profit. The song "Mordred's Lullaby" belongs to Heather Dale. The plot of this story is mine; feel free to link to this story, but please do not repost this elsewhere without permission.

This story is set after the events of Thor: The Dark World, and is non-compliant to any subsequent events in the MCU.

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_**Prologue**_

_**A Song of Ice and Shadows**_

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In a time beyond time, in a place with no name, through a door carved in the roots of the World Tree that lies somewhere beyond the Infinity Haze, three creatures crouched around a bottomless well. The well bubbled and frothed, and its depths were clouded with drifting silver mist.

"Do you have it, Sister?" said one.

"I have it here with me, Sister," said another

"Bring it forth, Sister," said the third, "and let it be done."

The creature drew from the folds of her cloak a weathered pouch. Releasing the draw string, the worn fabric fell open. In the palm of her hand rested a glittering shard of ice so cold that it puckered the material of the pouch that touched it. It was black as night, and glinted with white pinpricks reminiscent of diamond stars gone rogue in the inky void of deep space. It hummed in the wide vast nowhere of the nameless place, a rich, deep, haunting melody, laced with magic and sorrow and vengeance and love.

"What is it, Sister?"

"Why, Sister, it is a song."

The second creature extended one long, pale finger into the seething deeps of the well, crooking it coaxingly again and again, until at last she drew back. Around the bend in her finger was snagged a gossamer thread. It sparkled and glowed and resisted her pull, insistent upon remaining as one with the boiling liquid morass. But the creature insisted as well, and it separated, bowing up out of the misty miasma, drawn taut, both ends yet anchored in separate, far distant places in the abyss below.

"A song, Sister?"

"Oh, aye, Sister. A song made of ice and shadows."

The third creature, eldest and strongest of the three, reached forth and delicately lifted the glittering shard of ice with the barest touch of thumb and forefinger. Even so, the pads of her fingers began to crack and blacken almost immediately. With nimble grace born of ageless practice, she brought the shard to the thread, and swiftly bound the thread around it. The shard pulsed triumphantly, pulling the thread into itself like a mother drawing her child into her arms, until the thread was no longer one unbroken line, but two slender shafts of silver piercing down on separate paths from the same frozen, inky origin of ice and starlight. The vibrations of its song intensified, and an instant later the reverberations traveled down the length of the threads, carrying the melody to those two distant points in the abyss, so very far apart, but now eternally bonded at a crooked angle.

"For ice and shadow."

"For blood and birth."

"For a mother's love and a mother's curse."

"For a king three times denied…"

"…and the three queens that will crown him."

They raised their voices together.

"For the vast unending Night, for She who sleeps between the stars, for the will of our Mother and the sake of our brother, do we prophesy and decree!"

Slowly, reverently, the creature lowered the shard, pulled by the strands, into the seething soup, and released it. It vanished instantly, dashed down into the bottomless well by the pull of the threads.

"The deed is done! The seed is planted! The debt is paid!"

Wide-eyed, the creatures leaned over and peered down into eternity.

"I see it, Sisters! Long and lonely is the path, winding through wonder and loss. Gods become mortal, and mortals becoming gods. A terrible and twisting trail of treachery and lies. Must it be so, Sisters? Must it be so?"

"Oh, aye, Sister. Their legend was written from the beginning, and it shall ring through the ages, in every time and every place."

"So it must be, lest song of ice and shadows echo on forever."

"So say the Norns!" they proclaimed as one, their voice reverberating outside of place and time and folding in and through the silvery haze over the infinite depths of the well, etching the words in the roiling waters as though in stone. "May the Lord and Lady of the Lost Lands reign forever beyond the Infinity Haze!"

Then creatures lapsed into silence then. Listening. Watching.

Waiting.

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* * *

_Many ages earlier, or else in the distant future…_

_._

* * *

The Aether descended; a liquid cloud of infinite night. The high pinnacles of the eternal city were caught in its miasma. They blackened, transforming until all light that touched them was swallowed up, and their inky darkness became visible only as a gaping absence of being. The people screamed and ran as the seething cloud of nothingness slithered ever nearer. Chaos erupted as they scrambled for shelter from this force no shelter could hope to stand against.

But Asgard stood against it nonetheless. Even as Prince Thor battled the Svartalves upon Midgard, the magic masters wove defenses of light and sorcery. The Einherjar stood in ranks, a bright barrier of burnished gold, and crossed shield and sword to reflect the light, their weapons and armor gleaming and sparkling in the glittering green glow of enchantment. Asgard shone, a beacon in the darkness, and for a time the darkness was driven back in places. But it could not hold forever.

In the midst of the fray and confusion, the All Father directed his troops, ever vigilant even against an enemy that no sword could cut, nor spear pierce, nor shield deflect. Some he sent to bolster the magic masters, others he charged with corralling the terrified civilians to safety, if such a place could be said to exist anymore. They would stand to the last, the first and last defense against any foe that threatened the might of the Realm Eternal.

Odin sent them on, squad after squad, until only his honor guard remained.

"With me," he barked, sweeping out of the throne room down a side passage with sure, purposeful steps that belied his weary, aching, hopeless state. They would take a shortcut to the Bridge. He would stand at the fore of his men, and the champions of the nine realms, who had turned back every enemy ever faced, would die on their feet, charging into battle, as warriors of Asgard.

With he faceless enemy looming without, none of those remaining inside the castle ever expected an attack from within.

As they moved through the high narrow corridor towards the secret passage to the gate, a deeper darkness flickered in the shadows of the columns an instant before one of the guards cried out. The handle of a throwing knife sprouted from the gap in his armor at his throat and he crumpled to polished stone, rolling swaths of blood blossoming from his still form.

The remaining guards came instantly alert in deadly concert. Blades rang free of scabbards as armor and shields clattered into familiar stances of readiness. Odin, too, lowered Gungnir to the ready, though it drooped in an uncharacteristic display of weakness. But weary as he was, his eye was sharp as he searched the shadows for the next attack.

Without fanfare, it came, swift, brutal, effective. The foe seemed to be everywhere at once, darting like a serpent between the shadows.

A swish and whisper of a blade slicing the air, and two guards fell, fountaining blood, their slayer vanished faster than Odin could turn to strike. There was a cracking snap, and Odin turned again to see a third topple, his head twisted to an unnatural angle. A flash of green caught the corner of his sight as two more guards began to scream. The king turned in time to see them burst into acidic green flames that consumed their flesh in mere moments. The clatter of falling armor did not quite drown out the rattle of charred bones against the stone floor.

Odin swayed, dizzied by adrenaline and fear that would never show on his face. He gathered himself. Prepared. His breathing slowed, quieted. He listened.

There was the barest sound of a footfall behind him. He swung the spear, blazing a trail of golden fire as it bisected the air around him. For an instant, the shadowy silhouette was illuminated – an instant before the final guard was flung through the air into the path of Gungnir's fury.

Odin instantly ceased fire, horrified, but there was no time to grieve the young soldier, as a force struck him full in the chest, throwing him off his feet. Marble cracked and chips of stone flew from the crater he made in the wall. Gungnir was wrenched from his grasp. The world swam. Darkness tinged with gold blackened the edges of his vision. For some time the strain of the Sleep had pulled at him, and he had pushed it aside, waiting for Thor to at last ascend to the throne. But the Dark Elves had attacked, and the pall had descended. Time was up. The sleep was upon him

The shadows shifted.

"Show yourself!" Odin commanded, his voice strong though he could not longer even stand. "I would look upon the face of my killer before I die!"

"Am I your killer?"

The swish of blue fabric fluttered into the light. Odin thought he felt his ancient heart stop beating as his breath caught in his throat and unfathomable pain tore through his chest.

"Or are you mine?"

"Frigga…" he whispered brokenly.

She stepped from the shadows, straight, proud, graceful, heartrendingly beautiful. His dead queen advanced slowly, an expression of rage and hate colder and darker than the blackest pits of Helheim twisting her dear face.

"I was yours to protect," she hissed, advancing. From the folds of her gown flashed a blade. "I should have been your heart, your dearest treasure. Nothing should have reached me. And you let me die!"

The blade was cold against his throat, cold as ice, and the hand that held it shook with the misery and grief swimming in those eyes… those _emerald_ eyes…

The pain in Odin's chest transformed, deepened and broadened, lit with the smallest, faintest spark of joy and relief sunk under a cold crushing ocean of sorrow.

"Loki…"

Frigga's eyes went wide, draining of their rage, until only agony remained. Green light flashed and Frigga's beloved face melted away leaving the pale, vengeful visage of his second son crouched over him, the blade in his hand still fast against his flesh.

"You let her _die_," he growled through clenched teeth.

The tremor in his hand drew a thin line of blood at the old king's throat. An angry tear slid from the corner of his eye. The muscles and veins in his face and neck strained, as though he were fighting to bring the blade down – or fighting to keep himself in check. Odin saw the war raging in his eyes on a field of hopes shattered to jagged shards under leaden skies of grief. His broken boy…

Abruptly, another mind, with eyes of onyx that gleamed with pinprick diamond glints, like a spray of stars across the deeps of the cosmos, glared down at him from the verdant shine of Loki's green eyes.

_Oh, Nott… It wasn't supposed to be this way… I'm sorry…_

He suddenly, irrationally, needed Loki to know. The truth of his birth – all of it, not the strategic half-truths he'd delivered in the weapons vault, nor the stunted, guilt-driven proclamation at his sentencing. The reality the boy deserved to know at last.

Odin's secret shame.

"My son…"

But his sight was fading, and the last thing he saw before the golden glow of the Odinsleep dragged him under was Loki raising the dagger to plunge it into his heart.

"I am not your son."

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* * *

Jane watched, stricken, as Thor's towering form was swallowed up by the black and red gale. Her eyes flicked restlessly between the control module in her hand and the wall of shrieking darkness that the Aether had become. She couldn't see him any more. But in her mind's eye she could see the Aether expanding, consuming, destroying, felt its frigid, inhuman longing for unmaking. She wanted to scream for him to come back, to take her hand and run, even though there was nowhere left to go.

Ever since the liquid darkness had invaded her, gods had been falling in her defense. Frigga had died in defense of her. How many soldiers of Asgard had they sent to their pyres with her, all because she had wandered into something she didn't understand and walked into their midst carrying a deadly danger? And Loki… she closed her eyes for a moment, before forcing herself to turn her eyes back to the screen. Loki had put his body between her and danger more than once, for reasons she could barely fathom, and while he had not actually died defending her, he would not have been there in the Dark World in the first place to be impaled on an iron spike if it were not for her sticking her hands in places they didn't belong...

She wanted them back. Just for a moment. Long enough to ask why.

Frigga and the Einherjar she could understand. They were not defending only her, but the Aether, the weapon that would unmake everything. But Loki… the Aether had been taken from her body by then, and she had been nothing more than another fragile, disposable human, no different than the countless people he'd caused to be slaughtered when he tried to conquer her world.

Why did these shining near-immortal beings fight so hard for humans? For her?

Now Thor was diving head-first into a seething mass of pure destruction. For the good of them all, yes. But she had sent him there. She, who was too weak to go herself, too pitifully fragile for even gods to protect without suffering for it. She swore softly, clenching her teeth, wanting desperately to scream out her frustration and helplessness.

Instead, she took a shaky breath. And made herself sing. It was only three lines, over and over. A lullaby she had heard in her dreams since she was a child. Her chest swelled with longing and wonder, and not a little courage as the song filled her mind and her mouth.

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* * *

Loki's downward swing faltered and halted as Odin's eyes slid closed. The old man lay there, weak and vulnerable. As good as dead. Deserving death - a thousand deaths more painful than a knife in the heart for all the lies and the failures, the betrayals, the broken promises.

An old melody, a lullaby, something out of his dreams, from before the pretty lie of his childhood had been shattered, was echoing in his head, a product, no doubt of some specter of guilt and longing.

He stared at the man he'd called father for over a thousand years. When had he grown so old? He'd been here before, he realized, crouching over the old king's fallen form, torn ragged with emotion he ill knew what to do with. Emotion ripping at him from the fresh horror of learning he was no Aesir prince, but a stolen monster being kept like a particularly dangerous pet…

Pain, burning and immediate, flooded his veins with fire. He raised the blade again, teeth clenched, chest heaving. His muscles bunched painfully poised to slaughter. The blade flashed. It fell.

And clattered to the stone floor.

Loki followed an instant later, going from the balls of his feet to his knees. There he crumpled against the slumbering king's form, clutching Odin's sleeves and pressing his forehead to his breastplate.

"Father… Father…"

The whispered plea did not make it farther than the space between his lips and the cold metal, and silent tears washed them away. He broke against the old king's sleeping form like waves crashing against the cliffs. He rode the surging tides of pain and rage and sorrow, lost, adrift, clinging irrationally to the very one who constantly destroyed him, the one who's pride he had only ever aspired to obtain, the one whose pride he now abhorred because it could never be anything more or less than a lie.

He rode the waves of grief and anger and shame for his mother - for her death and his part in it, for the final kiss he could not bestow upon her cold brow, and the funeral barge he could not light to send her to her ancestors. Because this man had locked him in a cage.

And he was rocked violently between searing jealousy and desperate regret to imagine Thor, his one time brother, the treasured natural son of Odin, the beloved true child of Frigga. The ideal he had admired, and to which he had always aspired. The height from which he had always fallen short.

Another face flashed through his mind, a face that should hold little to no weight, meaningless and incidental, yet it threatened to tip him over into the boiling sea of pain and madness. Why now did he see Jane Foster in his mind? Well, of course… she was the one who embodied every person who had ever chosen and adored Thor. Always Thor, always…

He wanted so much to hate them all.

He clung there, absent to the passage of time, until at length the turbulent currents of his mind calmed and his shaking stilled. The jagged ruin of his heart was scooped back up and tucked away into darkness as his mind regained some semblance of purpose; of cunning and ambition, and lies and even mischief.

When he straightened and rose, his air and countenance were calm and controlled, his expression edged with dark amusement.

He stared thoughtfully down at the sleeping king at his feet.

"Isn't this an interesting development," he commented to no one, his voice rasping slightly from his show of emotion.

He glanced up and down the passage. A wave of his hand, and the blood and bodies and all evidence of battle melted away in a cascade of green luminescence and were hidden. His eyes fell once more on Odin. His face stretched into a grim smile.

"Very interesting indeed…"

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* * *

The lullaby left Jane suddenly, almost as if it could retreat from her voice on its own. It had served its purpose. Her mind had focused and found its true course, and the clamoring doubts constricting her chest had quieted.

She opened eyes that she had not realized had drifted closed. The spike flared to life on the screen in the same instant, and she twisted the knob with renewed purpose, grinning darkly as it flashed out of this world. A second time the screen flashed and she twisted again. The Aether screamed in protest. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mjolnir fly through the air like a comet and plunge into the abyssal black whirlwind. An instant later, the console beeped, and she spun the knob with grim satisfaction, her eyes riveted to the Aether.

As it evaporated into thin air, its grip on the nine worlds lost through the gravitational anomaly she had conceived and created, she found the painful helplessness that had gripped her so viciously had subsided.

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* * *

The sky was clearing when Odin stepped from the shadows of the gate, Gungnir in hand.

"My king!" one of the captains shouted, fisting a hand over his heart. "The aether has gone! Heimdall says Prince Thor has triumphed!"

Odin turned and cast his gaze down the length of the bridge towards Heimdall, whose whole attention was riveted on the far off battle on Midgaard. The corners of the king's lips turned up, and his eye flashed with approval.

It was an expression of pleasure. Pride. Triumph.

Yet somehow it caused the captain to falter in his approach, chilled and uncertain. An urge to reach for the hilt of his blade made his fingers twitch.

Then he shook it off, chastising himself. What weakness was this lack of recognition? This irrational feeling of foreboding after the battle was won? Utter foolishness.

The enemy was driven out, and his king stood before him in triumph.

What more was there to fear?

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TBC

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**A/n: **Thank you for choosing to click on my story!

This was the first Loki/Jane story I ever thought up; started writing this about three days after I first saw Thor TDW; then it sort of fell by the wayside. Now, I'm posting what I've got written so far on here for safe keeping, and to commit myself to finishing it.

This story will be updated _very _infrequently until I finish my other two Lokane stories – but it _will _be updated. The muse likes the premise _way_ too much to do anything else; what the muse wants, the muse gets. Plus, I've already written a prequel that I can't post until I finish this - so it is _happening _whether you or I like it or not. If you like what you see, please be patient; more story will be coming.

The rating on this story may increase in future chapters – in fact, I plan on it. So, you know, prepare yourself.

The concept of this story was first inspired by the song "_Mordred's Lullaby_" by Heather Dale. Be warned, the lyrics may hint at spoilers.

The structure of this story was inspired by ancient mythologies; it is broken into parts, and each part was influenced by elements of a different ancient legend. By request, all parts will be posted in a single-story format.

This story incorporates my oneshot fic "Triumph", but there are further plot points added to the telling, so even if you have read that story, don't skip those parts here, they may contain important details.

Please remember to leave a review and help me become a better writer! Any comments or constructive criticism are always welcome, but no flames please , if you don't like it, just don't read it. Thanks again for reading!


	2. Legend I: The Taking of Persephone

**Disclaimer: **I own none of the plot and characters of the MCU. This story is in no way for sale or profit. The following is an excerpt from an ancient Greek myth.

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_**Legend I**_

_**The Taking of Persephone**_

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_The maiden Persephone, seed of the springtime, was the sweetest and fairest of all the gods. Many a god sought to woo her, but her watchful mother Demeter rejected her suitors one and all, and hid her away, in her innocence, in the wild places of the world. _

_But no quarter is hidden from the sight of dread Hades, King of the Underworld. Seated upon his dark throne, he spied the gentle maiden at play, and against his will, his heart was lost to her beauty and grace. _

_Impassioned, Hades proclaimed his desire to Zeus, King of the Gods. Zeus, though loathe to condemn his beloved daughter to the darkness of the underworld, dared not deny his fearsome brother, who commanded all the legions of the dead. In secret he gave his blessing, but he warned Hades that Demeter guarded her precious child jealously, and would not surrender her willingly._

_So it was that the King of the Gods commanded Gaia to send forth a shoot of narcissus, the most beautiful of all flowers, in a certain meadow, upon a certain day, when Persephone's delicate feet danced through the woodlands and the fields, gathering flowers to weave into wreathes. Demeter, called away to her duties by Zeus, left Persephone in the charge of her dear friends, the naiads, the spirits of the streams and rivers. _

_Whispers and laughter and song rang in the fragrant air as Persephone conversed and played with her water nymph friends. All seemed right with world as she skipped along the banks of the sunbright crystal streams winding through the verdant wild. Until Persephone spied the fateful narcissus. _

_So drawn was she to its enchanting beauty that she decided she must have it for her floral crown. She left the circle of her protectors, who were bound to remain at the water's edge, and ventured forth into the meadow to collect the prize. Yet no sooner had she plucked the alluring bloom, than the earth began tremble as though in terror. The ground heaved and cracked, great gouts of flame and earth roaring up from the darkness, as a yawning chasm opened at the maiden's feet where the flower had sprouted. _

_From the depths of the shattered earth, in a chariot of gold pulled by black steeds with eyes of flame whose pounding hooves mimicked her father's thunder, there erupted the grim visage of Hades, towering above her small form, awe-inspiring in his forbidding majesty. So stunned was the maiden by the sudden upheaval that she fell senseless in a swoon, and was whisked helplessly into the clutches of dark god, the coveted flower falling from her lifeless fingers as he pulled her into his arms. _

_With a crack of his whip, the king of the dead turned his chariot. The sound brought Persephone to her senses just as Hades plunged his chariot down into the darkness. A single scream from his stolen bride echoed up from the pit before the chasm folded closed and the earth swallowed them whole._

_When Hecate, the Watcher of the Walls, told Persephone's mother that she had seen Persephone pass through the dark gates of death, Demeter wept for her lost child until the world began to die. _

_For Fate has decreed that any who fall into the Underworld may never return to the sunlit realms of the living._


	3. A New Convergence

**Disclaimer: **Still do not own the plot or characters of the MCU. The music and lyrics of _"Mordred's Lullaby" _belong to Heather Dale. This story is in no way intended for sale or profit.

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_**Chapter 1**_

_**A New Convergence**_

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"Go, my son," said the All Father to Thor Odinson, releasing him from his duty to take the throne.

"Thank you, Father," Thor replied, hefting Mjolnir and striding from the throne room, never looking back in his haste to reach the Bifrost, Midgard and his mortal.

"No," said the king upon his throne, as green-gold luminescence flickered and faltered, replacing the image of Odin with the master of magic that had deposed him. A small, triumphant smile laced with dark amusement lit Loki's face as he stared at his brother's receding form. "Thank you."

Loki knew it the moment Thor stepped from the Bifrost and away from Asgard. From the throne he could see and hear so much…

_This is where I belong. _He shivered, his fingers tightening on Gungnir, as all the realms opened before his minds eye. _ Where I have always belonged…_

And oh, how he would enjoy proving it. While Thor and Malekith had been thrashing each other all over the nine realms, Loki had wasted no time laying the ground work for his most ambitious plans yet. Very soon, there would be no need for pretense or illusion – he would wield enough power that he could stand, naked of all illusion, before all that had defied him, and not one of them would dare question his right to rule.

_It is my birth right…_

Rising from his throne – _his _throne – he descended to a small, concealed door behind the dais. By secret paths, he descended into the deep parts of the firmament beneath Asgard's palace, far beneath even the weapon's vault, to a place of conflicting forces, gravities and magnetisms that twisted and bent reality, rendering it hidden even from the piercing gaze of Heimdall. Such places were Loki's natural domain, and here he secreted what he most desired to keep hidden.

Here, within a vault as old as the worlds, stood the soul forge in which the true Odin lay imprisoned, locked helpless in the Odinsleep by magical enchantment, deeper than any that had come before.

Loki stood, his thoughts hidden even to himself as he gazed upon the sleeping face of the man who had been his father – who had never been his father – whom he had always wished was proud to be his father… The old god's eye shifted restlessly behind its lid, lost in dreams, no doubt searching for a way out that did not exist.

A hollow sadness crept into Loki's countenance, before he raised a hand over his adoptive father's still form. The eye slowed and stilled, and the ancient body relaxed into a more restful repose.

"Sleep, Father. Sleep, and I will do what is necessary. For Asgard…" another small smile curled the new king's lips. "And for myself."

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* * *

The council of builders was all in an uproar. The rebuilding after the invasion from Svartalfheim had proceeded smoothly enough – until the All Father had set forth a command for a new project to begin before the first was completed.

"Have you seen this?" shouted one official to another as he squinted at the glowing golden schematic hovering in three dimensions above the table. "Has the All Father lost his mind?"

"Hardly!" cried another. "It is brilliant! Look at the way the power flows would interact! Surely Odin is the wisest of kings. I had no idea he was so learned in science and magic as to devise such a device!"

"But see!" cried a third, shaking his head, "the energies would converge here, under the very throne! If one of the conduits were to crack, the entire palace would…"

"Then we had best be certain to construct conduits that will not crack," came a deep voice from behind.

The rest turned to see Jorgund, the Master Builder and head of the guild, approaching the table from the doorway. He studied the schematic, his eyes bright with awe, interest, and just a trace of fear.

"Master, the logistics of such an undertaking… the long reaching impact…"

"If this device works as Odin All Father has put forth," Jorgund interrupted, "it would channel the energies of all nine realms into a permanent artificial convergence. A convergence centered directly upon the throne of the Asgard – a site already amongst the most powerful in all the nine realms. Don't you see?" He looked around at his companions, a shadow of sorrow falling over his features; his son had been one of the Einherjar that had fallen defending the palace when the Svartalves had attacked. "There would be no force in all of Yggdrasil, or beyond, that could stand against Asgard's might. Ever again."

"But Master…" the first official murmured, conflicted.

"No, enough!" Jorgund interjected, his voice booming. The officials glanced amongst themselves, troubled by the gleam of hope laced with despair in their commander's eye. "My friends, our king has given us the order, and there is not a moment to lose. Dispatch envoys to the nine realms and let construction commence!"

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* * *

_Hush, child… The darkness will rise from the deep  
And carry you down into sleep_

_ Child… The darkness will rise from the deep  
And carry you down into sleep…_

Jane drew in a deep breath as she came awake in her London flat. The curtains of the window she had left open earlier fluttered in a chilly breeze, dancing shafts of moonlight eerily over the walls and the blankets. Shivering, she sat up and wrapped her arms around herself, then fumbled her way out from under the covers to wrap herself away from the cold in her old flannel robe.

It was the same dream.

Ever since she could remember, from her earliest childhood, she'd dreamed of this song. It was so achingly beautiful and so sad, and so full of things no child could fully grasp, and it had filled her with wonder and longing all her life. It was a song she had never heard outside her dreams, and she only knew those few words of it. Whenever it filled her mind, her eyes were drawn inescapably upward, and the stars seemed to call to her from all those light years away, and that old, desperate desire to know and to understand what lay out there beyond the edge of the night threatened spill over.

Padding over to the window, she levered it closed, then leaned against the sill, letting her head rest on the frame, staring out at the moon and the faint, muted glint of the stars beyond. They were barely visible here in the city, and she hated it. Though she would happily chew her own arm off before she gave up the research opportunities she'd been afforded since SHIELD had all but assimilated her, there was a small, aching part of her that longed for those days in Puento Antiguo, her shabby trailer and her makeshift research lab in the abandoned auto repair shop, and a trashcan fire on the roof under an endless dome of stars so bright and vivid that they seemed almost close enough to touch. Here and now, Jane had never been closer to knowing and understanding those stars. But they had never felt further away.

She wondered if Thor was looking at the same stars right now.

Her maudlin mood wasn't merely a product of the dream or her vague, baseless regrets. Sighing, she turned and looked back at the cold, empty bed.

It had been more than ten months since Thor had come back from Asgard, bearing the news that he planned to remain on Earth. Jane had thought, with that kind of time… well, with that kind of time, they should have been able to build, if not a life together, at least the foundations of one. It would have been enough time for normal people.

But they weren't normal. Or rather, he wasn't normal at all, while she was all too normal. They spent their days together whenever they could. But with Thor honoring his vow to be Earth's protector, and Jane's newfound position doing astrophysics research for SHIELD all over the globe, the time they had together seemed to dwindle with each passing week. She was stricken to realize that she had begun to feel, against the hope of seeing him, a kind of anticipatory disappointment each time the met, the ache of their eventual parting always tainting the joy of being together.

Now that Thor was staying on Earth, she should be in the midst of plenty. So why was she still starving?

Jane frowned, troubled, and pressed her forehead against the icy chill of the glass, letting the cold shock her out of her melancholy contemplation. Unfolding one arm, she held it bent, palm up, staring with lidded eyes, examining the skin at her wrist. No one would see it if they weren't looking, but to her gaze, the fine white scar above her pulse point that marked the spot where the Aether had entered her blood was unmistakable.

A gushing trail of aqueous black mist swam at the edges of her vision, and a distant, cackling hiss flowing with it through her mind. The vision wasn't what it had been when the Aether had permeated her blood: that striking, frightening, burst of liquid malevolence, filling the world around her with red and black shadows, the very atmosphere with oozing, crawling, splashing crystalline liquid, flowing against the laws of nature and science, dancing hideously to a baleful wail that sounded like the shriek of metal tearing, magnified thousands of times, tempered with a gurgling rattle, like hundreds of throats choking on their last breath…

She shivered. She knew it wasn't really there. She just needed to get back to sleep. Ever since the infinity stone had infiltrated her body, she occasionally had these… _hallucinations_ didn't seem like the right word for it. Or maybe she just didn't want to think that was the right word for it, because _hallucinations_ generally meant _crazy…_ perhaps _waking dreams… _or maybe _visions. _

Now that the Aether was gone, the visions only came very rarely, and they were nothing so grandiose. But they still came.

Thor assured her that the healers on Asgard had were not worried by it – the Aether had simply left an impression on her. It would fade with time.

Jane closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip, swallowing hard, then tilted her head back and gazed up through the frigid panes again, straining to catch the few points of starlight piercing the blanket of light pollution. Longing.

.

* * *

Nick Fury stood, his frown deepening into a scowl as the three stone faced warriors, armored in gold and trailing capes, strode into his office.

"Director, I'm sorry! I couldn't stop them, they just…"

Before the agent could sputter out another word, a fourth man, this one mercifully bare of gaudily gold-horned helmets, and bearing what Fury was going to assume was the off-world equivalent of a brief case rather than a spear and shield – though it too was plated in gold – approached from between the soldiers. The man was shorter, and had a slighter build as well, and his movements were smoother, but held less true grace. He glanced almost imperceptibly amongst the fighting men as he passed them; anyone else might have missed the resentful insecurity in his eyes, but Fury wasn't anyone else.

Fury knew a pencil pusher when he saw one. He fought not to sigh and roll his remaining good eye. He'd rather have fought off the three spear-wielding thugs than deal with an interstellar bureaucrat.

"You are Nick Fury," the Asgardian told him in a tone that bespoke an expectation of deference. Fury's fingers slowly curled around the butt of the gun at his hip, resting there.

"Who wants to know?"

The Asgardian ignored him, instead placing the case on the desk between them.

"You are known to us, and you have the thanks of our people for your aid in bringing the rogue prince, Loki, to justice. Odin All Father sends us to you now with a small token of our thanks." The pencil pusher opened the case. The contents glittered up at him, gold and jewels. "And a proposition for future cooperation between our worlds."

.

* * *

"My king," Jorgund addressed Odin's image upon the throne, going down on one knee with a fist over his heart.

Loki watched him there for a heartbeat, still reveling in the due deference of all around him, now more so than when he had been king by right instead of by his own wit. He would revel even more when he was addressed as "my king, Loki". For all the excitement and challenge of wielding his new power, the image of the All Father had already begun to chafe. He longed to build the might and glory of his reign under his own name.

_Patience…_

"Rise, Master Builder," he commanded at length. "Deliver your report."

"Thank you, All Father," Jorgund replied, climbing to his feet. "The envoys to Vanaheim and Alfheim have returned with favorable results. Fleets of builders are being dispatched to each realm as we speak. The fleets dispatched to Svartalfheim and Niflheim have reported work is proceeding swiftly and without difficulty. Several of the workers on Niflheim did have to be transferred due to a sensitivity to the shades, but Queen Hel has made no objection, and the groundwork for the conduit has been laid in the wastes well outside her domain."

"Excellent," Loki responded. Jorgund bowed his head with a sheepish smile, clearly pleased at his king's praise. "And the other realms?"

"The envoy to Jotunheim has had difficulty finding a leader to contact; it seems the Jotuns have been fractured since the death of King Laufey. In the absence of diplomacy, surveyors have begun scouting favorable regions for building that the Jotuns would not be able to access, should any object." He shifted uneasily at the uncharacteristically cold smile that curled his kings face, and forged on. "The envoys from Muspelheim, Nidavellir and Midgard have not yet received an answer, but report expecting favorable results."

"You contacted the man I recommended on Midgard?" Loki asked nonchalantly.

"Indeed, my king," Jorgund nodded, perplexed. "The mortal known as Nick Fury. Forgive my impertinence, your majesty, but though the Midgardian rulers have displayed favorable interest, this particular mortal has shown open hostility to the project." His question as to the wisdom of that particular move was left unspoken, but clear.

Loki only smiled, trying to imagine Fury's scowling impotence – the spy had excellent instincts, he would smell the danger, even if he couldn't pinpoint its source.

_Ant. Boot._

He chuckled darkly, and Jorgund shifted uncomfortably again.

"Have faith in your king, Jorgund," he said, amused. He liked Jorgund, he decided. "If Nick Fury opposes construction of the conduit, you can be certain the leaders of Midgard will answer us favorably."

"As you say, All Father. Truly you are insightful as you are wise and innovative. Asgard is fortunate indeed in its leadership."

Loki worked hard not to purse his lips in frustration, his impromptu favor towards Jorgund cooling slightly. When had Odin, with all his keen sight and vast power, ever had the knowledge, foresight or wisdom to understand duplicity, strategize under the table, to spark a vision this ambitious or far-reaching, or bring to fruition a vision on the level that Loki set into motion? It was disgusting to him to allow Odin so much credit for his work – work that Odin would never approve of in the first place!

The temptation to drop his illusions and claim credit for his accomplishments was nearly overwhelming.

"Inform me when the other realms have made their reply," he said through clenched teeth, waving a hand in dismissal. Jorgund fisted his hand over his heart once more and departed.

_Patience. Patience. Soon they'll all know who I am, who brought them power, victory, unequaled prosperity, glory like none ever known before... Patience…_

The trouble was, patience had never been Loki's strong suite.

.

* * *

"I don't like it," Fury said point blank, doing his best to divide his glare equally amongst the shadowy images on the screens around him. "Asgard has kept separate from Earth for over a thousand years. Why now do they suddenly want to 'build bridges' and be good neighbors?"

"Asgard has recognized that we are a growing power with great potential to become an influential intergalactic presence," one of the shadowy figures reasoned in that oily tone of condescension and command that was common to all of this ilk of power-glutted political leader. "It is only to be expected that we should open lines of communication, commerce and diplomacy."

"With all due respect," Fury replied, working hard to keep his face blank of irritation, "for all our power, we could still barely contain one crazed Asgardian with a fancy spear, and we needed the help of one of theirs to do it. I seriously doubt they're interested in an arms deal."

"That 'small token' that their king sent had a net value of over eight-hundred and fifty million dollars," another remarked, and there was an air of finality in his voice, as though the mention of such a sum put the conclusion beyond all doubt.

"Think of the possibilities for scientific and technological advancement. The Asgardians are millennia ahead of us. What they could teach us makes Tony Stark's arc reactor look like a water wheel. The benefits to Earth are incalculable."

"The council is decided," a third voice confirmed, and there were murmurs of agreement all around. "Let the Asgardians build their Atlantic conduit."

Fury stood there long after the screens had gone blank, mired in a brooding silence as he wondered what kind of monster they were going to let out of the cage this time.

.

* * *

"The new squadrons have assembled, my liege," Sif reported, fisting her hand over her heart where she stood at the foot of the All Father's throne.

The throne room looked so radically different with the gargantuan power conduits arcing in from behind the back wall to merge into the crystalline chamber that had replaced the throne's elevated dais. It unnerved her. The throne room had not changed since before she had been born; it was a constant, like day following night, the clang of steel on steel, or the taste of the wind after rain. To see it changed left Sif feeling decidedly wrong footed.

Odin flicked his gaze down upon her, his eye stern and holding a coldness and unbreachable distance that had never dwelt there before Queen Frigga had perished. The king nodded once in acknowledgement, and looked away in clear dismissal.

But Sif tarried.

"My king…" she began slowly, pausing as she prepared to broach a subject that always seemed to put Odin in a foul mood these days. She pressed stalwartly on. "My king, is there any word of Thor? How he fares on Midgard? When…" she glanced away, pursing her lips in consternation at how pitiful she sounded to her own ears, "When he plans to return?"

If Sif had felt the distance of the All Father before, when he turned his eye upon her, she suddenly felt she was standing far too close to something too dangerous to face unarmed. Her shoulders tightened against the hardness that entered the king's face.

Odin, all unhurried, stood from the throne. His steps echoed in the great hall as he descended the dais, and as he approached, closer and closer, Sif was suddenly, irrationally, afraid. This was the All Father. He may punish her, detain her, send her away; but he would not strike at her. Even so, the fine hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, her instincts singing, and it took great self-control not to reach for her blade.

Odin paused before her, and then continued past, circling her. She stood very still, confused but at the ready.

"Thor again…" the All Father mused, a bite in his voice. "Why do you all continue to ask after him?" He stopped in front of her, too close for her comfort, and then leaned in even closer. His eye snapped with a secret fury. "Your dear prince has made his choice. He has abdicated his throne and turned his back on his homeland, his friends and his people, to set up house with some mortal wench on Midgard so that he may go on playing boy hero with a band of barely functional misfits. He has said his farewells. Why can you not do the same?"

In spite of her training, the sting of those words weakened Sif. How many centuries had she stood at Thor's back – at his side – waiting for him to glance her way, to really _see _her… The hurt only showed in her eyes for an instant, but Odin was observant. His eye narrowed at the sight of her heartache.

"Always Thor…" the old king muttered, those two words infused with so much spite that Sif's eyes widened and the fingers of her sword hand twitched. The All Father rocked back on his heels, glaring at her thoughtfully down the length of his nose. "You have always longed to be the queen that would rule at Thor's side, if I am not much mistaken." When Sif didn't answer, unsure how to properly respond to such a warped description of her feelings, a calculating, almost cruel smile marred the All Father's face. "It is understandable. Hmm… perhaps you shall rule after all. As _my_ queen, rather than Thor's."

Unable to help it, Sif felt her jaw fall open as she blinked up at her king in abject shock, and not a little horror. Surely he was jesting. Sif had grown up playing soldier with his sons; she was a child beside him. Not to mention, the ashes of Queen Frigga's pyre were still warm. He couldn't possibly be serious. And yet his gaze bore into hers with unyielding gravity, and when it swept assessingly down her body, she had to fight not to shudder in revulsion. It was madness; it would be like marrying her own father.

"My king, I am flattered… honored… but I couldn't… I could never…"

The All Father's expression cooled, and he turned away from her as she stammered, his shoulders lowering fractionally. For an instant, Sif thought she had actually, ludicrously, injured his feelings; though he couldn't possibly have expected her to accept such an outrageous proposal, she was nearly on the point of regretting her hasty refusal. Then, with the speed of a striking snake, he whirled on her, his rough hand shooting out to encircle her arm with bruising force. She hissed in surprise, and it was followed by the hiss of her sword against its sheath. Both of them froze, staring each other down.

"Would you really draw your blade on your king, Lady Sif?" Odin said in a soft, deadly voice. He was so close that she could feel his breath on her face. In her confusion, she could swear his breath felt cold. She swallowed hard.

"Never, my liege," she vowed, proud that her voice didn't shake, and deeply grateful that she'd been able to stop herself. An inch or two more, and the blade would have swung free, and she would be a traitor.

The king sneered at her words. He did not release her, holding her at an uncomfortable angle against his body, and Sif's concerns suddenly took on whole new dimensions.

"T-the men are waiting for me on the training grounds," she said, her voice clear, but too quiet, as he succeeded in intimidating her in the way men jealous for power had always intimidated women who would assert their own strength – sheer physical presence and that veiled but unmistakable threat of sexual violence.

Odin held her still, far too close for comfort, for a long moment more, before thrusting her away from him and striding angrily back up the steps of the dais to his throne.

"Be gone. We shall discuss my generosity and your ingratitude at another time."

Sif only too readily complied, fisting her hand over her heart before turning and striding from the throne room, her mind a storm of dark thoughts. Not until she had rounded two bends and put a door between herself and the throne room did she allow herself to lean against the wall of the corridor and collect herself. Never in all her life had she had cause to truly fear Odin before today. She pushed out a cleansing breath to banish her fear, and looked down at her hand.

At the single scale of mail that she had pulled from the king's armor when he'd grabbed her.

All was not right with the All Father. Something was amiss. Terribly amiss. Glaring grimly at the shining golden scale, she vowed silently to find out what.

.

* * *

"You have to admit, he's kind of a hottie," Darcy commented, biting into a doughnut from the cardboard box on the table beside her as she watched the events playing out on the screen of Jane's the laptop. "You know… for a homicidal megalomaniac with delusions of godhood."

Jane frowned over at Darcy from where she hunched over her hard copy of the star charts SHIELD had sent her as part of the project she was consulting on. She could feel a headache coming – SHIELD was being as mysterious as ever, giving her a few tiny pieces of the puzzle and expecting her to extrapolate the whole picture from them and tell them what they wanted to know, while keeping the rest in the dark.

"You shouldn't be looking at that," she said. "That's top secret stuff. I'm not even supposed to have those files."

"Hey, you were curious enough to trade away half your consultation fees for these. You can't blame me for wanting a look too." Darcy shot back, turning her attention back to the screen. "It's just such a waste. Good looking men going bad. And what's the deal? First Thor, then his brother. Is everybody from Asgard this yummy?"

Jane rolled her eyes and caught herself blushing. She wanted to argue, but there wasn't much she could say. She _was _curious about Loki. Curious about how the man who had cut a swath of fire and blood across the New York could be the same man Thor had spoken of with such fondness and loss; the same man who had grinned down at her, sly and delighted, after she'd slapped him across the face; the same man who had tried to kill Thor over and over; the same man whose lifeless body Thor had wept over, when his own mother's death had not moved him to tears.

She was curious enough to swallow her pride and consult for SHIELD on this mysterious new project involving quantum molecular power transfer and intergalactic conduits, in spite of the fact that she still didn't trust them or approve of their methods, in order to obtain the satellite and CCTV footage they had captured of Loki while he was on Earth.

It wasn't something she could help. Loki was an enigma, and even though it was far too late for it to matter, Jane had never been able to resist a puzzle.

She'd watched the videos, frightened, fascinated, horrified. It would be so easy to write him off as a homicidal sociopath, a cold, hardened killer without a shred of decency or redemptive quality. Most people would.

Jane could not. She was a scientist, and her scientific integrity would not allow her to ignore outliers in her data just because it didn't fit neatly into the picture of a previous hypothesis. And her data said that there had been more to him than met the eye.

She'd listened to some of Thor's stories of his youth, growing up alongside Loki, the pair of them thick as thieves; the man he described bore zero resemblance to the would-be conqueror sneering and laughing at the destruction raining down around him. And in watching the videos, she had seen more than just violence, cruelty and terror– she had witnessed Thor trying to reason with Loki atop Stark Tower, even as New York burned around them.

All jokes about brain versus brawn aside, Thor was no fool. He wasn't deluded enough to try to talk Loki out of his schemes on a whim. There had to be _something_ more to Loki, something deeper, something that Thor, who knew him better than anyone, was convinced could be coaxed out and redeemed.

Whenever she contemplated this, Jane found herself trying to imagine the man Loki might once have been. She found she couldn't picture it. But then, neither would she have equated the quietly sarcastic, bitterly amused man with those intelligent, watchful eyes, with the vicious, gold-horned monster that had turned Manhattan into a war zone. They seemed to be different men entirely, even though they were the same man.

The same dead man.

Why did that thought hurt so much?

At first she'd thought it was for Thor, for the loss of the brother he'd loved so much. But as time passed, she knew that wasn't all of it. This hollow ache at the memory of his death didn't make a single bit of sense. She hadn't particularly liked him or cared about him. She hadn't even known him. But the pang of emptiness was there. It was as though she missed something she'd never had.

In the end she supposed it hardly mattered. But it was enough to make her curious. Curiosity had always been Jane's weakness.

Jane sighed and rubbed her forehead. Completely distracted from her work, she abandoned the star charts and calculations, walking around to stand behind Darcy, who was watching the security footage from the rooftop of Stark Tower. Thor and Loki were locked in a vicious hand to hand struggle. It made her stomach tighten painfully to watch them strike so brutally at each other, one lifting the other and throwing them into a wall or the ground, the other putting the one's head through a sheet of glass, both of them moving, striking, blocking, counterstriking with such deadly speed and precision that it almost looked more like a dance than a fight. Jane leaned in slightly, momentarily mesmerized.

Darcy wasn't wrong. They were… beautiful. That didn't sound very flattering, describing men, but watching them in full motion, the sheer raw power and deadly grace of them brooked no other descriptor.

Loki lacked Thor's impressive musculature, though he was by no means weak; where Thor was golden haired and sun-kissed, Loki was dark and pale as alabaster; where Thor spoke and moved expansively and infectiously, commanding the eye and the smile, Loki was quiet and far more deliberate, as though his entire body was ready to lie at a moment's notice, hidden within plain sight, daring you to see him and laughing with dark pleasure when you can't.

Thor was leonine, majestic, his fighting style bold, broad and decisive, with a power behind it that shattered brick and warped metal. He shone in the sunlight, a beam of pure golden light blasting through anything that stood in his path. Loki, on the other hand, was like some mesmerizing mix of a snake and a wolf, his motion graceful and liquid, soft and sharp as shadows cast by moonlight, flowing in and around the hard, relentless reality of Thor's blows, then striking out of the darkness of his own presence, silent, swift and precise as a striking serpent.

They were polar opposites, but they were both utterly beautiful. Without her permission, her mind wandered back to the day she visited the Dark World, when she had stood flanked by the alien brothers on the ridge overlooking the valley where they would meet Malekith. In that nightmare mélange of shifting, whispering darkness and blood red miasma, Jane clearly remembered, for a fleeting moment as she looked from one to the other, feeling that she was literally standing between the sun and the moon. The sheer presence of them had made her feel so small, a leaf alternately blowing in a storm and tumbling through a boiling current, completely powerless.

She grimaced at the morosely flowery nature of her thoughts. She was being completely ridiculous. Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, she excused her own daydreaming. After all, they were mythic gods out of legend and song. They were bound to inspire some poetry now and then.

She stared at the screen, at Thor, who was alive, but never around. And at Loki, who was dead, and would never return. And though the causes were completely different, the physical ache it left in her chest remained disturbingly similar.

"Were you actually planning to get any work done," she huffed sourly, embarrassed at her own thoughts, which were not helped by the appreciative noises Darcy was making. "Or just to ogle the aliens all day?"

Darcy's eyebrows shot up as she glanced over her shoulder at Jane with an incredulous look.

"What a way to refer to your sweetie," she commented blithely, and Jane blinked and looked away. "Oookay. Shutting off the hotness." She matched action to word and closed the video files. "So if you've surfaced from your zone, you must have figured something out. What's the plan?"

"My zone?" Jane asked, letting herself be distracted from her rapidly deteriorating mood.

"Yeah, your zone," Darcy confirmed, waving her hand in the air around her head. "You know, wherever it is you go inside your brain when you're working out a problem. Not sure where, it's not anywhere on this planet. But you're back, so you've worked it out, right?"

"Er… yeah… I mean no!" Jane shook her head and ran a frustrated hand through her hair, trying to gather up her scattered thoughts. "I mean, they give me readings, but don't tell me where they got them. They give me schematics for a machine, but they won't tell me what it does. It's like aiming with my eyes closed. All I can do is speculate. But… if my speculations are correct… then yeah, I've figured some stuff out."

Darcy blinked at her. "I'm going to miss American Idol tonight, aren't I?" she deadpanned.

Jane frowned. "How do you watch American Idol in Britain?"

"Satellite dish," Darcy replied.

"Oh. Yes, you're going to miss American Idol tonight."

"Typical. I'll get Intern to record it."

Jane forewent rolling her eyes. Darcy really was smitten with Ian, and her favorite way of showing it was to treat him like a doormat. Strangely, Ian seemed to respond rather well to it, so Jane refrained from commenting and pressed on.

"From what I can tell," she explained, moving the star charts to one side and laying out the main schematics beside it, "this machine they're building will do something similar to the Bifrost bridge on Asgard. The calculations here, the gravimetric and quantum shifting that this should cause within the aperture… If I'm right, it _should _generate something similar to the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, but…" she shook her head. "The trajectories are all wrong. The energy matrix is shifted inward, the aperture would too narrow for matter transport. It could only ever move energy. Whatever this thing is, it isn't a bridge. Its… more like a pipeline. An energy pipeline."

Darcy was blinking at her in that way that told her she had "stopped speaking English," as she often put it.

"So do you want me to make graphs?"

Jane bit down on a sigh. It was times like these she missed having Erik around. But he was currently lying on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean, trying to relax and sort through the remaining mess Loki had left inside his mind. What she wouldn't give to have someone competent in astrophysics and familiar with Asgardian technology to bounce these theories off of…

"Yes. I'll write up the report, you make the graphs. Lots of them. Half the time I think SHIELD doesn't even read my report, they just look at the colorful bar graphs and pie charts."

"In that case, I want a 10% raise," Darcy said, taking the stack of data sheets Jane had scribbled up.

"Ten percent of nothing is still nothing," Jane told her distractedly, already drifting back down into the star charts, trying to figure out how the gravitational forces between celestial bodies would act on a wormhole designed only to carry energy.

"Then there shouldn't be any problem giving it to me," Darcy quipped with a shrug as she returned to the computer and set to work.

Jane barely heard her. A little knot of worry was beginning to form in the back of her mind as she continued to pour over the data and the schematics. She couldn't quite understand the point of this machine… she didn't have all the elements to work with… but there were aspects of the schematic that, at first glance, appeared to be extraneous focusing elements. But what if…

Jane scrabbled for scratch paper and a protractor. Sketching out the trajectories, she ran the theoretical equations, factoring her suspicions into her calculations and applying algorithms she had devised herself, based on her own theories. Half an hour later, she stood up straight and stared down at the outcome values.

If her math was right – and it was always right - this machine had the potential to do more than merely move energy. When the gravimetric fields were properly aligned at a given angle, if the quantum flux capacitors were calibrated just so, it might have the potential to concentrate and direct untold quantities energy in a focused mass…

It had the potential to be a very dangerous weapon.

.

* * *

Loki turned restlessly in Odin's opulent bed, tugging at the blankets that seemed to strangle and suffocate. The chamber loomed, dark and cavernous, but the air seemed too close to breathe. His whole being squirmed with restlessness. An unwelcome face flashed through his mind. He banished it with mediocre success.

Blowing out a beleaguered sigh, the sleepless king threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. If there were anything he regretted about his bid for power, it was that he could not return to sleep in his old bedroom. Or rather, he could do whatever he pleased, but it was not worth the risk of rousing suspicion, just for the comfort – and comfortably familiar lies – of the rooms he'd grown up in.

So there were nights he did not sleep. Some were a product of the uncomfortable bed. Others were a product of nightmares, mostly memories of that hellish stretch of time between his fall from the Bifrost and his power play on Midgard. Sometimes the Other was there in his mind. Sometimes it was burning and drowning, lost in the Infinity Storm, other times it was the slave market in Pandiem; yet others it was the torture dungeon of the Meridian Keepers. Sometimes it was Thanos himself. But more often… much more often… he dreamed of the ones he'd met before he ever knew Thanos existed. The ones waiting beyond the door, deep in the roots of the world. The ones who had broken him like brittle iron, purged compassion and conscience with ambition and ruthlessness and reforged him into a blade made for sundering worlds.

Loki shivered, though the night was warm, padding to the balcony on silent bare feet. There was no door – no nightly intruder or inclement weather would dare disturb the All Father's chambers – and the gauzy drapes that separated inside from out fluttered in the night breeze. He gathered them aside, leaning against one of the glittering columns of marble shot through with veins of gold. Moonlight and starlight mingled through air fragrant with apples and spice, and fell across his face and chest, painting him with a silver glow, so that he shone paler than the marble at his back. He gazed out at the magnificence of Asgard, so rich and alive, even in slumber. His Asgard, now both by right and by his own effort and cunning. It danced before his eyes, a jewel of immeasurable beauty and worth. It drove back the shadow of fear that threatened to claw his way out of his throat as a scream, and brought him back to the moment at hand.

Sometimes he did not sleep because of the bed; sometimes he did not sleep from the unwanted company of his dreams. And sometimes he did not sleep because his mind was too full, and its weight would not let him drift away.

Tonight it was full indeed.

_Rousing suspicion…_ He pursed his lips.

He did not know why he had made that offer – or rather, demand – to Sif. It had been reckless, a foolish, careless move. Loki had never even had a particular taste for Sif, and her blatant dislike of him had only further cooled his appreciations of her charms. He did not even _want _her, not for a bedmate, much less for a wife.

His own impulsiveness both bothered and oddly amused him. He wondered briefly if he really did lack conviction, as the enemy on Midgard had once accused. Just before he died. Loki smirked.

Sif was just so _enamored _of Thor. It was nothing new, of course. Sif had loved Thor for centuries, and everyone knew it, except perhaps Thor himself. It would be a strange thing indeed if Sif had stopped asking after Thor. It shouldn't bother him.

_Did any fair maiden come asking after me when I fell from the Bifrost?_

Loki's face twisted at the bitter taste the thought left in his mouth. Then it relaxed into something like disconsolate resignation.

_Who would?_

Loki squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shake off the melancholy mood that had gripped him. That lovely, unexpected face, those deep, flashing eyes that he had no call to be thinking of, sailed across his mind once more and a low noise, not unlike a growl of frustration escaped his throat.

Sif was bad enough, but _her… _

He was wound too tight, desperately so, indeed, if his tastes were drifting in a mortal's direction. He needed to releases some tension. Perhaps he merely needed to visit a brothel. It had been a while… he shied away from the idea.

Maybe he had simply grown too accustomed to taking his brother's things. He smirked again, and then it grew into a wide grin as he chuckled to himself. That seemed more likely. It really was such fun. And it would explain his impulsive proposal to Sif. He'd claimed his brother's throne already. Why not his brother's would-be warrior bride?

_Or his beguiling mortal lover._

He sobered as, for a third time _her _face flashed across his mind.

_Jane Foster._

He scowled. He decidedly did _not_ like thinking of her. He'd known of the mortal woman ever since his brother's banishment and she had never crossed his mind once, unless it was to dream up new ways in which he could thwart Thor. But ever since their sojourn to Svartalfheim, she had frequented his thoughts more and more, and the harder he denied her, the more persistently she slipped his defenses to cloud his mind with distraction and not a little irritation.

She was nothing to him – he had spoken at length to Thor about how fleeting she was. She was a mortal ant, practically already dead. And yet, he could not force her from his thoughts.

It was always the same expression that came to him first: fierce outrage married to wary vulnerability, sharpened and heightened by the stinging sensory memory of her slap across his cheek. Then came the way she moved, the watchful intelligence of her eyes, which seemed to miss nothing, the way the light struck her profile and the breeze sifted through her hair. Then he would remember the way she had clung to Thor as they moved through the barren terrain of the Dark World, and the burn of petty jealousy he'd felt to see them support each other so unabashedly…

Yes. Yes, he was certain now. This madness was all merely a desire to have what Thor had, to take what was denied him. There was _no _other explanation.

_I only ever wanted to be your equal…_

And it had been true, then. Now… Now that it could never be, Loki would more than settle for being his better. In all things.

Jane Foster's fierce eyes invaded his mind again, and he shoved the image viciously away. There were better women. Worthier women. Women who would accept him, who would want him. Women who would look only at him. Women wouldn't be dead in the blink of an eye…

Maybe he should just marry Sif after all… she was better than Jane Foster, in a hundred ways.

Loki was suddenly, intensely aware of just how dark and empty the king's chambers were. Hollow. Devoid. He felt it keenly.

Moonlight shifted over the long, lean lines of his forearm as he held his hand out, palm up, and stared at it, remembering the first time he'd seen it blue and cold and rough with ridges. He swallowed hard, and his gut tightened painfully.

What delusion. If he were honest with himself - and here, alone in the dark of the night, he might as well be - he could almost admit to himself that he would never again visit the brothel district, nor would he ever take a wife. Much as the thought hurt, he could not imagine ever having a woman again. Not for lack of desire, or even availability. But rather for the simple fact that he could not stomach the idea of touching a woman with this Jotun's body. Not even a whore.

What woman would lay hands on him if she could see what he really was? And if… if, in the midst of his ardor, he somehow changed, his body becoming hard and blue and frozen, his eyes bleeding red and savage… if she looked up at him and screamed in horror at the monster above her…

_Jane would scream._

_Jane Foster is meaningless. It doesn't matter what she would do._

…_she would scream._

His eyes and throat closed against the specters of his imagination, and when he pressed his face into his palm, his hand was trembling. He stayed that way for a long time, riding out the storm of loneliness and disgust. He reached for anger, rage, hatred, his old allies in power, but each time he approached them, those fierce eyes denied him, and all he felt was a hollow longing that threatened to gut his resolve and unman him completely.

When it at last quieted, he allowed himself an indulgence that he had avoided since he had discovered his true parentage.

Drawing his hand away from his face, drew a deep, slow breath and cast his eyes out beyond the shining city, beyond the end of the rainbow bridge, to the glittering sea of black velvet strewn with gems, pearls, stripes of pale silk and ivory, which was the sky of Asgard, and the branches of Yggdrasil. Softly, he began to sing to himself.

It was a lullaby. Frigga must have sung it to him as a baby, though it was unlike her others. And unlike her others, he could not remember her singing it. He used to dream of it, and even then, it did not sound like her warm, familiar voice; the voice he had always known as _mother. _And yet the song inspired warmth and safety from within, like only his mother's embrace ever had. Who else's song could bring him such peace?

His singing voice was rusty from disuse, and he missed a note or two at first. But with repetition, it smoothed and grew stronger, until it echoed gently through the shadows on the night breeze.

_Hush, child… the darkness will rise from the deep  
And carry you down into sleep._

_Child… the darkness will rise from the deep  
And carry you down into sleep…_

It was all he knew of the song, though he was certain down to his bones that there was more to it. The music of it, simple yet haunting, filled the night around him, and when he fell silent, the lonely emptiness was gone. The shadows seemed almost alive with warmth and welcome.

And when Jane Foster's face filled his mind again, it was neither so forbidding as usual, nor his chest so tight with bitterness.

His eyelids drooped, and when he crawled back into Odin's bed, sleep came swiftly and if he dreamed, he did not remember it.

.

* * *

As Loki slept, deep in the heart of the city, others still roamed sleepless in the night. One heavily cloaked and hooded figure crept on silent feet through an older quarter of the golden city, keeping to the shadows and pulling to a halt in the deepest darkness whenever another night traveler happened by. At length, the figure came to rest before a weather-beaten wooden door set deep in the wall at the dead end of a shadowed alley. Glancing back and forth, the figure quickly rapped out a series of knocks against the scarred wood. Moments later, the door swung inward of its own accord, spilling a warm golden light out onto the well-worn stone of the alley. With only a moment's hesitation, the figure swept inside, letting the door swing closed behind.

The room within was long and low, the air close and musty. The walls were lined with shelves, and the floor was piled with tomes and crates of odd, esoteric artifacts mixed with broken mechanisms and shards of stone. Herbs hung in drying bundles from the ceiling, fragrant bits detritus crumbling against the figure's hood.

At the far end of the room, in repose in a rocking chair by the blazing hearth, sat the silhouette being so stooped with age that it appeared almost to fold in half; withered and weak, it appeared ready to crumble as well. Deceptively so. The cloaked figure advanced warily.

"Close the door," warbled a high, thin voice that creaked with the weight of millennia. "And lower your hood, my lady. There is no other here to see your face."

Swallowing back her trepidation, Sif closed the door and pulled back the hood of her cloak.

"You are Elli, the Ancient One," Sif said. "They say your wisdom is unmatched by any Aesir, even Heimdall or the All Father."

The crone straightened slightly, and turned a wizened face, so folded with wrinkles that its features were barely distinguishable, in Sif's direction. She was not bald, as Sif had first thought, but the wisps of white hair were so spars and fine that they all but vanished in the brightness of the hearth fire; when her head turned just so, they formed a shimmering silvery halo around her wizened head. Bright, sharp eyes peered out from where they had sunken into the skeletal hollows of their sockets.

"Matched only by my danger," the crone agreed, a twinkle of dark amusement sparking in those black orbs.

"They say your help always hurts," Sif concurred, stopping several long strides from the crone's chair, staring.

Elli the Ancient One was said to be the oldest living being in the nine realms, older than old age, older than time itself. Looking at her, Sif could almost believe it. After a moment, she shifted her gaze to the fire.

"Hmph" the hag grunted. "And do they say what I take in payment?"

Sif narrowed her eyes, thinking hard. Then she drew a blade and strode purposefully forward, swooping low.

The crone did not flinch as Sif crouched before her, the blade between them. She waited.

Sif deftly flipped the dagger, catching it by the blade, and held it out to the old woman.

"You have no need for gold or jewels, no need for power or wealth," Sif said. "You value only that which has value in a person's heart."

The crone cocked her head, black eyes unblinking.

"And what value has this to you?"

"It was given to me by the man I love. The man I have loved for centuries. He defended me from an attacker as a girl, and gave me the dagger as a trophy. I have kept it as a talisman of hope that my love will one day be returned."

The hag's eyes glittered.

"That is a potent talisman indeed. What do you require of me that would merit parting with it?"

Sif looked down, running her thumb longingly along the cool metal of the blade.

"The father my dearest love holds dear is… unwell. Something has gone wrong with his heart or his mind, and I fear for him, and for those around him. I fear my love will suffer for this imbalance. I fear…" Sif shook her head, her brow furrowing. She reached down into her belt pouch and withdrew the scale of armor she had plucked from Odin's mail. "I took this from his armor. I have consulted many sorcerers and magic masters, but none could discern anything from it. Powerful magic conceals its secrets. Old and forbidden magic, if not even one could penetrate its shroud. You are the only hope I have left to find the answers I seek." Her brow cleared, and she met the crone's eyes with the hard, unyielding gaze she saved for enemies in battle. "Tell me ails the one who wore this armor, and I will give you the blade that contains my heart."

The crone met her gaze with calm amusement. She regarded her for a long moment, the amusement slowly draining from her piercing eyes, until only a quiet resignation remained. One knobby hand uncurled from the armrest of the rocking chair. The clawlike fingers with their thick yellow nails long and sharp as daggers, slid along the hilt of the blade, learning its texture. Then they left the dagger and turned, palm up, waiting.

Sif clenched her jaw, suspicious, but she dropped the scale into the craggy palm.

The crone sucked in a sharp breath as metal met flesh. Her glittering eyes slid closed, and her thin lips parted in a reedy gasp. Then she went utterly still under Sif's hawk like stare, and for a long while there was no movement or sound but the leap and crackle of the flames.

"Triumph."

Sif jumped slightly as Elli broke the silence. It took everything in her not to bolt backward when the crone's eyes snapped open – they glowed fiendishly with an inner fire as she read the scale in her hand.

"Triumph. Glee. Amusement. Pride. Anticipation. But it is hollow. Disappointment. Restlessness. Dissatisfaction. Covetousness. But a hope for the future. Beneath that… a sea of black, fathomless rage. Bitterness. Cruelty. Hatred. Beneath that… loneliness. Sorrow. Longing. Grief. Hopelessness. Regret. A _screaming_ agony of loss. Beneath that… a frigid, numbing fear. Confusion. Aimlessness. A moldering of the soul. A deadness that will spread if it is ignored. Beyond that…"

The crone sucked in a deep breath and blinked. The light of magic in her eyes dimmed. She refocused on Sif.

"The one who wore this scale of mail is deeply conflicted. Deeply troubled. He has lost all he holds dear, and seeks in all the wrong places for something new to cling to. There is a curse of sickness upon his soul that goes deeper than spells or enchantments. It is a song that has been sewn into his very being. If the correct tool is not found to rip it out, it will consume him utterly. The one who wore this is indeed sick at heart." The crone lowered her eyes to stare at the scale. "But that is not the most important or intriguing information to be had."

Sif's racing mind stilled at the last statement. "What do you mean?"

"The scale itself," the Elli whispered threadily, shifting the scale so that she could hold it up between her thumb and forefinger. She gave it a squeeze, and Sif startled to see it flash with unnatural green light. "The scale itself is not real."

"Not real…" Sif breathed, her mind racing anew. "But… it cannot be illusion. I held it in my hand, even as you do now! I felt its weight, its temperature, its texture!"

The crone nodded, her eyes glittering once more.

"It is powerful magic. Old magic. Older than the Nine Realms, and lost long ago, or so I thought. I have not seen its equal since before the days of King Borr… no, that's not so. There was one… powerful and beautiful, vast and terrible as the darkness between the stars… but she is long dead…" The crone reached up with her other hand to caress the scale, causing it to spark again. "It is an illusion made real. _Truly_ real. The ability to rewrite the very fabric of reality… I had thought only a wielder of the Infinity Stones could conjure such magic."

Sif's eyes widened. "The Tesseract…!"

But the crone was already waving her worry away.

"A Stone alone is not enough… not for _this_." She shook her head, but her black eyes never left the scale. "This is more dangerous than a weapon. Even a bilge snipe could wield the Tesseract as a blunt instrument of destruction if it so desired – and it would be destructive indeed. But it is this _knowledge _that is dangerous, this long lost magic. This is not merely the ability to destroy – it is the ability to _create_. The one who conjured it must have knowledge beyond any reach of living memory. Except mine, of course, but even I could not do this…" She glanced at Sif. "One thing is certain, you can be assured that the wielder does not have an Infinity Stone, or else has not yet made the connection between the power of the stones, and the knowledge in his possession."

Sif swallowed, her throat dry. "How can you be sure?"

Elli raised her eyebrows, and there was something fatalistic in the gesture.

"I know, because if he did, you can be certain he would have done more than create armor with it." She looked back at the scale. "You fail to understand the magnitude of this magic. It is the magic that unmade the Great Darkness of the Svartalves – it is the magic that _created _the Nine Realms.

Sif rocked backwards as though the woman had struck her. A fine tremor ran through her frame as her eyes locked on the shining scale.

"How can this be…" she found herself whispering, already fearing she knew the answer, but unable accept it enough to give it voice. "What does it mean?"

"It means," the crone rasped, giving her a knowing look, "beyond any doubt or speculation, that the man seated upon the throne of Asgard is _not_ the All Father."

Sif blinked rapidly several times, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

"That is a grave _possibility_," Sif growled, her hand tightening around the blade she still held extended. There was no point in denying the identity of her subject any longer. She felt the edge bite into her palm, and the sensation helped to steady her and calm her racing heart. "With grave repercussions, if the… the _imposter_ is as powerful as you say."

"Nevertheless," the crone replied matter-of-factly, "it is not mere possibility. It is the truth. That is what you came here for, is it not? Your answer is given. You must now do with it what you will."

Sif swallowed hard, wanting to deny what the old woman said. But her every instinct resonated with the crone's words. A cold knot in her gut unwound, but did not thaw, as her subconscious suspicions were given form and confirmed. There was no time for denials or disbelief. She extended the hilt of her blade to the crone, her hand steady where her heart shook.

"Nay, child," Elli shook her head, eyeing the scale. "Keep your heart. Its depth of emotion pales in comparison to the seething ocean of pain this magical scale encompasses. I will take it as payment instead."

Sif opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. The scale was useless as evidence, as no other magic master could read it. And while many came to Elli in secret for her great knowledge, the old witch's reputation for two-handed techniques and treachery would only sow fear and discord, dividing the realm when it must stand united. The scale may even prove dangerous in Sif's keeping, if the imposter missed it and traced it back to her. If Elli was right, Sif did not like her chances of surviving the encounter. She had long ago given up the luxury of fearing death, but she could not die until she had mustered some defense. Caution and stealth were of the utmost importance now.

She made to give her assent, but even before she could, the scale flashed brightly and began to glow steadily. A moment later it dissolved, melting into the crone's flesh. Before Sif's eyes, the crone's skin began to ripple and shift, her frame straightening and lengthening, her flesh filling out and firming. Frothing sheets of glossy red hair shot through with gray sprouted out to replace the wispy white nimbus and cascading down around her shoulders, the lines of her body growing soft and graceful…

…until a moment later a slender, stately maiden sat before Sif, her bearing regal and proud. The only thing that remained unchanged were the clear, sharp black eyes, and the wry amusement that glittered from them, heightened at Sif's undisguised amazement.

"How did you think I had lived so very long?" Elli the Ancient One asked her with dry amusement. She looked at her hands, wiggling fingers that had become slender and flexible, then ran them over her arms and down her body. "I have not been this young in millennia. Indeed, that scale was overflowing with emotion." She looked down at the still-gaping Sif and smile with the first trace of real warmth she had displayed. "You have my thanks. Rise, my lady. You have much to do."

Her hands folded around the blade, turning it between their hands, so that Sif once more gripped the hilt. There Elli's hands stilled, and a knowing sadness crept into her face as her eyes grew distant.

"Do not give up hope that he could love you," she said quietly. She looked up to meet Sif's eyes. "But know that you will never be more than second in his heart."

Sif made a choking noise in the back of her throat, pain lancing through her chest as though Elli had driven the blade through her heart. Gripping the dagger's hilt, she shot to her feet and whirled away, striding for the door with purpose so that she could pretend she was not fleeing the confirmation of what she had always feared. She stopped as she reached for the door, torn, then turned back.

"Why did you tell me that?" she snarled miserably. "Do you get some sick joy out of causing pain to those who come to you for help?"

Elli watched her from her rocking chair, the firelight burnishing her sliver laced red hair the color of blood and starlight. Her black eyes were wide and sad.

"The truth is often painful, child. But true knowledge gives us the only _real _power we can ever hope to wield. The power to choose our own destiny, rather than having it laid upon us like a geis." She looked away then, casting her eyes to the flames. "No great power is ever gained without suffering."

Sif stood rigid for an instant, torn between an urge to cry and a boiling desire to slit the woman's throat. At last, however, pressing necessity dictated action, and she pulled the door open and strode out into the darkness of alleyway, shutting away the Ancient One's abode behind her.

The night air washed over her face, cooling her blood and pulling things into perspective. There was much to be done.

"Are you mad?"

Sif whirled around, blades singing through the air. They clanged against two others mid swing, and Sif found herself nose to nose with Fandral.

"Easy now!" came Volstagg's gruff admonishment as he melted out of the shadows. Hogun was beside him. "The old witch has you spooked? I can hardly blame you for that. That was a foolish thing to do, Sif!"

"How did you know where I went?"

"We followed you," Hogun said simply.

"You've been utterly out of sorts recently," Fandral explained. "You had us worried."

"And with good reason," Volstagg went on, "Have you lost your senses? What business could you possibly have with…" he grimaced, glancing around as though the shadows might be listening, before leaning in to finish his sentence in a whisper, "… the _Ancient One_!"

Sif drew in a breath, looking each of them in the eye in turn. The looked back, stalwart and ever at the ready. She drew back her blades, and felt a measure of confidence surge back into her limbs, where before her resolve had faltered. The All Father was an imposter, and in only a few days, the artificial convergence would activate and make him all but invincible. But here were people she could count upon to believe her and back her sword with their own steel.

These three, and one other.

"Grave business and ill news," she said. "I will explain everything on the way. But we must go."

"Go where?"

"To Midgard," she nodded, grinning in spite of the remaining ache in her chest. "We will need Thor."

.

* * *

Dawn rose over the nine realms. In Asgard, Loki, well rested and eager, rose with the suns. Today marked the beginning of the end of this farce of slinking in the shadow of Odin's visage. For on each of the other eight realms, Asgardian engineers and magic masters stood ready, awaiting his command.

.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Dr. Foster," Agent Coulson repeated for perhaps the fifteenth time.

Reports of his brutal murder had apparently been over stated, but Jane was frustrated enough with his calm façade that felt she might have to remedy that in the next few minutes. What was he even doing here? Incidentally glad to know the man wasn't actually dead, she wasn't exactly happy to see him. Whenever Coulson turned up, things went badly for her.

She stood bristling before him in the middle of the lobby of Stark Tower in Manhattan, itching to shout some more, but beginning to feel like a fool in the face of Agent Coulson's unflappable calm.

When she'd been informed that all her research, reports, and Darcy's graphs had been reviewed and then ultimately ignored, she'd boarded the first flight she could get back to the States, hoping to get in contact with Tony Stark. She knew him via Thor, as well as from his endorsement of her theories as he'd encountered them through the SHIELD research and development database, which he had unabashedly admitted to hacking into. The man was not only brilliant, a true genius, he was also notorious for throwing wrenches in SHIELD's works when they were being particularly obstinate. And, as one who had made his fortune designing weapons, she had hoped she could count on him to recognize the same threat in the technology's design that she had, and back her suppositions about the danger the Asgardian conduit posed.

Jane had hesitated when she first solidified her findings about the conduit's potential threat. This was Asgard, after all, Thor's home. Why would they want to threaten Earth, when they had protected it for so long? And why now? But the longer she studied the schematics, the star charts, the way the portal was intended to function, the deeper her foreboding grew. Her evidence was circumstantial and almost entirely theoretical, but her every instinct screamed that the configuration was too precise to be mere coincidence. She had no idea what could be going through Odin's head, but she knew that he was pointing a loaded gun at the earth - one that he had humans helping to build alongside Asgardian artisans in the North Atlantic.

However, upon her arrival she had been informed that Mr. Stark was not in, because of course, he had gone to oversee the _activation_ of the almost completed North Atlantic conduit. Jane was nearly ready to tear her hair out when Agent Coulson had materialized from no where to weather the brunt of her moral and scientific outrage.

"We sent your report in for review, along with your multiple requests for an audience with the Director and his superiors."

"And you told them what I found?" she demanded, sounding belligerent to her own ears and barely caring. "About the potential for weaponization of the portal? About the _immanent threat _to the _entire planet_ it could potentially pose?"

"It has been noted. Repeatedly," Jane thought he sounded mildly annoyed, but she didn't know who with. "SHIELD thanks you for your time and your cooperation, but unfortunately, they have declined your request for an audience."

"This is insane!" she snapped, ruining the last vestiges of a sane appearance by running her fingers angrily through her hair and mussing it. "How can they just go ahead with this, after reading my findings? Why did you people even ask me to consult if you were just going to ignore everything I wrote?"

"It was actually Mr. Stark who recommended you," Coulson replied, surprising her. "On his recommendation, Director Fury authorized your inclusion in the project. He delivered your findings directly, but his superiors had the final say." There was no external indication of Coulson's disapproval of this course, but somehow Jane got the feeling he didn't like this any more than she did. "I have it on good authority," Coulson went on as though they were having a pleasant discussion about the weather, "that Thor is with Mr. Stark at the conduit site. They should return once the initialization is complete."

Jane blinked, thrown off by this sudden play out of left field. Her anger faltered as her heart gave a leap at the prospect of seeing her absent lover. How long had it been since she'd last laid eyes on him?

"He's… coming here?" she said rather lamely, suddenly unaccountably nervous and wrong footed. Her ire of just a moment before seemed to slip through her fingers like sand, and she began unconsciously trying to straighten her hair.

"Just as soon as the activation gets underway."

"Oh," she said, still lame. "Well… well good. So I guess I can talk to Mr. Stark when he gets here. And Thor."

"If you'll come this way," Coulson instructed pleasantly.

Jane scowled as she recognized she was being managed.

"I'll wait right here, thank you!" she sniffed intractably.

Coulson bobbed his head once, smiled tightly and retreated, leaving her standing alone and looking rather silly in the middle of the busy lobby. Even so, she took what petty satisfaction she could in the small victory as she threw back her shoulders and paced purposefully over to a pair of overstuffed armchairs in one corner and planted herself in one of them to wait. Shoving Coulson and SHIELD from her thoughts, she tried to concentrate on her anticipation of seeing Thor.

Nevertheless, her stomach was in knots to realize that the conduit was to activate today. Both glad that Thor would be there to supervise it, and worried that he would be there if anything went wrong, Jane couldn't shake the nagging fear that they were all collectively stumbling into a trap.

.

* * *

"I still can't fathom what Father is thinking," Thor confessed to Stark.

They stood side by side on the edge of the runway of SHIELD's flying fortress, which was currently rocking gently on the surface of the ocean, playing at being a mere aircraft carrier.

Rogers had been with them until only moments before, but had gone below to check on Banner, who had been recalled by SHIELD to oversee the human component of the activation team. Romanoff and Barton were likewise roaming somewhere in the bowels of the fortress, fulfilling their roles as dictated by Director Fury.

Thor and Tony had been the last to arrive, and had been assigned their role in the situation, which would be to shut down the conduit if a malfunction occurred, by brute force if necessary. If something went wrong, this would be the only opportunity to do so. After initialization, the conduit would take ten days to reach full capacity, and after that, it would be self-sustaining and virtually impossible to destroy; even disassembling the mechanical structure was unlikely to disrupt the rift the conduit would create in space-time. It was a great risk; and it was the reason the Avengers had been called together.

"No offense to your dad, big guy; I like his style. Big. Loud. Made of gold." Stark replied, gesturing expansively at the massive mechanical ring that hovered suspended several hundred feet above the ocean with the aid of a technology Stark dubbed 'anti-grav'. "But really, what else do kings ever think about? Power. Money. Military advantage. I don't care how literally-god-almighty you guys are up there - politics is politics, and military is military." Stark shrugged blithely. "He saw the Aether the same as the rest of us. He's securing his borders."

Thor frowned thoughtfully.

"You may be right," he conceded, but he wasn't convinced.

This was not his father's way. While it seemed great wisdom to him to deter conflict by increasing Asgard's might in peace, this reach out into the other realms did not ring familiar of a king who had withdrawn from all outside contact for a thousand years and had refused to risk riding out against enemies that had attacked him in his very home – a reaction Thor had already witnessed twice – not even the ones that killed his queen in cold blood. Whatever this was, it was utterly uncharacteristic, and it made Thor wonder what had transpired to make his father take such a drastic and far reaching step.

As they watched, the concentric external turbine rings began to hum, the engines initializing, the final checks being made. A moment later, the rings slowly began to rotate in opposite directions. A grinding, clicking roar started up out of the narrow space between them, green flashes sparking as the speed began to pick up.

"Did you read Jane Foster's report?" Stark asked suddenly, not taking his eyes off of the rotating ring as their speed began to build. Thor's attention was jerked from the initializing Asgardian technology to study the man's profile, abbreviated by the line of the Iron Man's metal frame. For the first time, he noted that Stark was unusually subdued.

"Jane's?" he echoed, his heart leaping to hear her name so unexpectedly. He cleared his throat and looked back up at the conduit rings. Sparks were beginning to shower down into the ocean below in a circular sheet of green light. "I did not know she had written of it."

In truth, he hadn't known Jane had even known of it. It was meant to be secret from the masses of Midgard. As he watched the energies beginning to spark in the wide empty aperture of the conduit, it amazed him that she understood the workings of this technology that even the master builders of Asgard barely comprehended – and he did not truly understand at all. His chest tightened with wistful pride. How long had it been since he'd laid eyes on her? It felt like an age. He shook himself.

"And in any case, I cannot read your language. Your characters are confusing."

"Oh, right," Stark scoffed, waving a metal clad hand dismissively, "like your alphabet isn't a bunch of blocky chickens scratch."

Thor smirked, but did not allow himself to be drawn into a verbal bout.

"Well, I read it," Stark went on, and finally he turned to face Thor full on. "And she thinks exactly what I think. What SHIELD wants to cover up and the government wants to deny." He turned, his stance suddenly confrontational, and pointed indicatively at the green showers fountaining from the conduit as it gained momentum. "That your dad's flying saucer up there isn't just a power conduit. It's also an energy weapon."

"A weapon?" Thor blinked in surprise, looking back up at the great spinning ring in the sky, the conductor spikes within the inner ring rising into position as energies sparked between their tips. "How..." He frowned, not liking the implied accusations. "What exactly are you saying, Tony Stark?"

For a moment, Stark's face hardened, all trace of charm and wit evaporating. Then he blew out his a breath, raising his eyebrows in a kind of facial shrug that banished the harsh lines.

"Nothing," he said amiably. "Yet. Because I know about defense, and I know that in the hands of the right people, sometimes the best defense is a good offense. _All _I'm saying…" his brow gathered as he pursed his lips, seeming to choose his words with care, "… is that with that megalithic nuclear deterrent aimed at my world, your people had better be the _right _people."

Thor felt his brow grow thunderous. His first instinct was to leap to the defense of his father and his realm. He opened his mouth, tightening his grip on Mjolnir. But much as he would like to thrash anyone who besmirched the honor of the Aesir, he could not escape the memory of his father's blind grief and fury after his mother's death, the woundedness of spirit that had blinded the old king and led to such poor decisions. It had led to the necessity of Thor and his friends committing treason to save the realm. The thought tempered his ire. Could his father have made such a rash and unwise decision…?

Thor clenched his teeth against the thoughts whirling through his skull. Even if the whole of the universe questioned his father's fitness, he would not fail to remember his father's wisdom and foresight.

"My father is wise beyond reckoning. If there need be a _right one_ to shelter the realms from danger, it is he!"

Stark held his gaze for a long moment, then smiled, shrugging off all seriousness.

"Good to hear. Hey, pay attention," he admonished with mock severity as he turned back to the racing conduit. "Wouldn't want to miss the show."

Reluctantly, Thor turned back to the conduit as the sparking of the rods approached critical, his mind in knots with worry at Stark's observations, and his heart heavy and divided with the guilt and longing. For Asgard. And for Jane.

.

* * *

"Heimdall, you must let us pass," Sif insisted.

The warrior woman barely was restraining herself from snarling in the face of the towering guard, which would be a feat indeed, given that he was almost two feet taller than her. Nevertheless, she might have given it a try if Volstagg hadn't caught her around the middle, physically lifting her off her feet and all but tucking her under one arm.

"What the Lady Sif means," Fandral said, stepping up with a gracious air, "is that we are _most_ eager to visit our friend Thor, and would be much obliged if you would open the bridge for us for but a moment."

"The bridge cannot be opened during the initialization," Heimdall repeated, steady, unfazed and immovable as stone.

"Perhaps if you merely left your blade in place for us, like before – oof!"

Volstagg was cut off as Sif jerked her elbow up and back, connecting with the weak pointing his armor. He dropped her and she advanced on Heimdall once more.

"Heimdall, you see and hear all," she said emphatically, her voice dropping slightly. "Can you truly say that you have seen nothing amiss in our realm in recent months?" She pursed her lips, and took a risk. "Nothing amiss with our king?"

She heard a collective intake of breath behind her, Fandral, Volstagg and even the stoic Hogun holding their breaths as Sif took the grave risk of tipping off the honor-sworn guardian.

There was a pregnant pause. Heimdall's golden all-seeing eyes bore into Sif's with the weight of a hundred suns, but Sif held his gaze, even as it caused a sheen of sweat to break upon her brown. At length, the gatekeeper conceded by the barest narrowing of his eyes.

"I am absolutely loyal to my king," Heimdall said. "If he were compromised in some fashion, the proof of this unfitness would need to be absolute and beyond doubt."

Sif threw back her shoulders as the warriors three sighed quietly in relief.

"Indeed it would," she agreed, keeping her hold on his gaze. "It is fortunate, then, that no one is making any such claim. Today. _Today_ we merely wish to visit an old friend."

Heimdall was silent again, his presence poignant and looming, familiar yet vaguely threatening without offering any threat, considering the four of them for a long time.

"I will open the bridge," he said at length, then brought them up short as he added, "but only after the initialization has begun. It truly would not be safe – for you four, or for the Asgardian builders who are operating the rings." At Sif's dissatisfied expression, he rested the tip of his great sword against the crystalline surface of the bridge with finality. "After the initialization."

Sif narrowed her eyes in frustration, then turned away, muttering under her breath.

"I only hope that will not be too late."

.

* * *

At that very moment across the vast expanse of the cosmos, Asgardian builders stood ready in each of the nine realms. Carefully synchronized, the guildsmen watched the conduits spin, the energies building.

The vast throne room of Asgard was filled with citizenry, warriors, advisers and dignitaries. The air fairly crackled with excitement and curiosity, but as the appointed time approached, all grew still in anticipation of the promised spectacle. In perfect likeness of Odin, Loki sat still upon his throne. From the dais, he could see each of the eight rings, each upon the eight different realms scattered far distant across the cosmos.

The moment arrived without fanfare. Loki stood, and the crowd instantly silenced. Solemnly, he raised Gungnir and brought it down against the dais with a thunderous _boom_, giving the signal and leaving the air he air vibrating with power.

The countdown was thereby begun, and at the exact same moment, on each of the nine worlds at the end of each branch of Yggdrasil, the guildsmen moved in a precise dance, striking in concert with a magic master to drive the final lynchpins into place.

As one, the rings of Muspelheim and Niflheim were activated. The energetic essence of the hottest fires and the coldest ices of all the known worlds erupted into the conduits. Loki braced himself, his heart racing, and only the barest gasp of amazement escaped him as the cascading forces struck their receiving rings in Asgard, plummeted through the refractive pipelines, and collided like blazing comets within the clear crystalline chamber beneath the throne.

The crowd cried out in astonishment as the throne was lit from beneath by the surging energies as they swirled around each other, mixing, clashing, exploding and imploding in perfect synchrony, perfectly balanced and counter balanced.

Just as their exuberant exclamation began to die down, the signal was given for the activation of the rings upon Alfheim and Svartalfheim. The essence of light and dark shot forth from across the galaxies to join with hot and cold, and united in a cascade of luminescence and shadow that lent new depth and brilliance to the reaction within the chamber. Loki gritted his teeth as the energies surged up through the throne and the spear, and through him, the King whose power was connected to both. Never had he felt anything like this – never had he dreamed there could be anything like this. Heimdall, perhaps, could see and hear these realms in all their vast variety, but Loki now could _feel _them singing in his blood.

Before he could entirely comprehend the raw power flowing through him, the final signal was struck, and the rings upon Jotunheim, Nidavellir, Vanaheim and Midgard roared to life.

.

* * *

Both Stark and Thor stumbled backward, stunned by the sheer raw force of the ring as it fully activated. Energy, white-hot and golden with flames, rushed inward from the green shower of magic, converging at the exact center with such force that for an instant the impact caused a deafening silence, followed moments later by a roaring sonic shockwave that rocked the entire mass of the helicarrier on the waves. Thor and Tony were amongst the few to keep their feet, as soldiers and agents who had come topside to watch the activation were knocked backwards to tumble end over end along the paved runways.

As the essential energetic patterns of Earth were siphoned upward, Thor shuddered at the sheer enormity of power before him and hoped fervently that his father knew what he was doing.

.

* * *

Upon each of the nine realms, time and space erupted, inward and upward, energy screaming in a swirling stream out into the stars, slithering between the solar systems and black holes, scattering asteroids and dancing through quasars, bent by magnetism and gravity tracing the twisted branches of the world tree back to their source. The icy blue of Jotunheim, the fiery infernal red of Muspelheim, the shimmering green of Vanaheim, the inky blackness of Svartalfheim, the glittering gold of Midgard, the misty gray of Niflheim, the pure white of Alfheim and the rich earthy brown of Nidavellir, all forged together and refracted within the crystalline chamber below the throne, casting fantastic shadows and throwing myriad rainbows out into the throne room, until the throne itself, and the king who stood before it receiving the essence of these energies, blazed like a newborn star.

Power flooded Loki's body so forcefully that he nearly cried out in fear and ecstasy before the conducting rods erupted outward, channeling each stream of energy, regulating it, controlling and fine-tuning the flow. He reigned himself in and managed to shudder only briefly as the energy mix reached optimal balance and the magic of the throne reacted. The blazing brilliance within the chamber pulled back in on itself and became self-contained, feeding instead into the throne, resonating with it and making it radiant with precision. The throne shone, and Gungnir vibrated with purpose in the iron grip of his fingers.

It was everything he had hoped for, and more. He could feel the might of each of the realms surging through him, the unique wavelengths of each world swirling and mingling, balancing and enhancing each with the other, just as he had calculated. He worked to keep his breathing even, worked to keep a grin of gleeful excitement from stretching Odin's face.

It wasn't just the thrill of causing mischief on a universal scale, fooling every living thing on Asgard, or that this moment would mark the last days of his self-imposed impersonation of his staid and joyless former father.

It was that he had _done _it! There was an almost boyish joy in watching his calculations and theories coming to life before his eyes. What once were only ideas and possibilities were now metal and magic and surging energies colliding to create something greater than the sum of their wavelengths. The permanent convergence was, all else aside, a remarkable achievement, a magnificent marriage of technology and magic, a functional wonder as well as a thing of beauty. And but for him, it would never have existed.

_And this is only the beginning, _he promised silently as the crowd erupted in cheers for their radiant king upon his new seat of power. His heart pounding at the possibilities. _No one else has my vision, and no one else could pull it all off. I will make this universe ever more magnificent. There will be no end to the glory of my reign. _

In that moment, poised upon his laurels and relishing the magnitude of the sheer power at his fingertips, he really believed it. He laughed, a dark, triumphant sound, that sent a ripple of unease through the watching crowd before they allowed themselves to be buoyed up out of suspicion once more by the glorious glow of their ruler's new power and protection. The temptation to drop his disguise and shout to the skies that he was indeed Loki, king of Asgard, and now essentially of every other realm, was nearly unbearable.

_Patience. Not yet. _

It would take ten days for the energy streams to stabilize – after that, they would be self-sustaining, and no feeble rebellion, however valiant or persistent, would ever be able to steal the this power from him. And if by some strange turn of tide there should be an uprising… well, the full might of this world altering power, channeled down through one of the rings… no rebellion would last more than a matter of minutes.

"Ten days…" he promised himself in a ragged whisper as the crowd continued to celebrate his great achievement.

Ten days and he would rule all nine realms without question or opposition until Ragnarok carried all the worlds into oblivion.

.

* * *

In the depths of space, beneath the Infinity Haze, in the badlands that Asgardians called the Underworld, the Lost Lands, the Roots of the World, a slumbering beast felt the tremors as the cosmos were shaken by the unbridled power transfer. It stirred in the darkness beyond starlight, straining towards wakefulness for an instant before settling back into its sleep. A sleep that now could never again be eternal.

.

* * *

TBC

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* * *

**A/n: **Please let me know what you think of the story so far! Comments and critiques are always welcome! More to come in the near future, remember that patience is a virtue (which may be why Loki doesn't have any).


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